Lifting and shifting of a disabled/bedridden person has always been difficult, risky and problematic. This lifting and shifting is dangerous and painful for the disabled person if done by the untrained person. The patients are scared of this procedure, as there is a danger of slipping and falling and getting injured.
This lifting and shifting is strenuous for the nurse. When he/she is trying to lift the patient, he/she has to bend over the patient to lift him. This posture in the long run gives the nurses a back pain and can turn into permanent back problems. A lot of medical literature is available on back problems of nurses as it is very common in nurses.
A disabled person mainly needs to be shifted from a bed to change the bed or bed sheet. The person also needs to be lifted when putting a bed pan under him. This lifting and shifting is painful and dangerous for the disabled/bedridden person. A patient gets bed sores and skin troubles due to contact with a bed as some portions of skin do not get any air which causes infections and proves fatal on most occasions.
Many lifting and shifting apparatuses are available in the market. All these apparatuses are expensive and unpractical at home as it takes a lot of space and a lot of training for the user. In hospitals, some help is available, but at home one is helpless and finds lifting and shifting very difficult.
It has been observed that it is very difficult to nurse bedridden persons, the main difficulties are:    i. lifting the person up for airing for long time;    ii. lifting the person up and off the bed for change of bed or bed sheet;    iii. lifting the person for putting bed pan under him; and    iv. making the person sit upright in a chair position.
In beds available in the market, only the back frame goes in the upright position. The leg support frames do not go down. Also they do not have commode facility.
It is a common fact that all the patients on fouler (back straitening) bed slide down with the operation of the backrest. They have to be pulled up every day and that is strenuous for nurse or family members and painful for the patient. This sliding forward of patient happens because as the back is strained the patient is pushed forward as there is no sliding movement between the patient and the back frame.
In the available equipment there is no arrangement to stop this pushing. The patient is pushed forward and so slides towards his feet. As a result he has to be pulled up when the back of the bed goes into bed position as it does not pull the patient up but goes does down to bed position so the patient remains in the pushed forward position. In the available equipment nothing is available to solve this problem.
Hence there is a need of an improved bed or lifting apparatus for a patient that has a sliding back which will address and overcome all the problems of the bed or lifting & shifting apparatus of the prior art.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a bed or lifting apparatus for a patient which will address and overcome all the problems of the bed or lifting & shifting apparatus of the prior art.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bed or lifting apparatus for a patient, which enables the patient to be lifted off the bed for airing the patient and for change of bed.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a bed or lifting apparatus for a patient which can be converted into chair.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a bed or lifting apparatus for a patient which has the built in commode.
Yet another object of the present invention is to eliminate shifting the patient from chair to bed and vice versa as the bed itself turns into chair.
To overcome this problem a need was felt to invent some mechanism, which will    1. Stop pushing the patient forward (towards legs)    2. Will save the energy of nurse and make their life easy    3. The patient will not have to go through the painful procedure.